horse armor
OG gamers remember how this all started. We got what the whales deserve.
Horse armor came out in 2006. Micro transactions started in 2002 with Maple Story. Plenty of other games had micro transactions by then. Horse armor was a peak when Microsoft drove too hard and consumers pushed back- it was far from the start.
wait, did microsoft own bethesda back then?
No, but they had a very close relationship. Morrowind was an Xbox exclusive. Oblivion was a timed Xbox exclusive that was supposed to be a 360 launch title that got delayed (the Horse Armor fiasco happened in 2006, while Oblivion didn’t release on PS3 until 2007).
It didn’t start with horse armor. And even then, while clearly stupid, it wasn’t egregious in the way modern mtx is. It was just a poorly priced optional cosmetic DLC. Modern mtx is a whole other beast, where companies use every psychological trick in the book to get people addicted to gambling.
Horse armor was not cosmetic. It was armor.
Otherwise, spot-on. At least people who paid for horse armor got a whole new file for something that was not already in the damn game. Nowadays you’re already looking at the thing, and you’re getting gouged for the ability to say you have it.
Not gonna dispute this but horse armor has a cache
Cachet.
Oh, it had like an inventory functionality? I love Oblivion, but I obviously didn’t get the armor and don’t remember the details. I suspect it also provided defense for the horse? In that case it’s almost approaching Assassin’s Creed’s “buy xp to skip grind” level of egregiousness, but still just a DLC.
apologies… cache as in it was a meme with gamers about paying for it haha as it was a joke but here we are :/
Could you please explain? Now I’m curious.
If the internet was a real a place i would be able to pull article from the time period but search yields jack shit.
but here something now (2020) https://screenrant.com/oblivion-horse-armor-dlc-controversy-explained/
In 2006 - a year after the Xbox 360’s launch - the term “microtransaction” wasn’t even widely known. Instead, Oblivion’s Horse Armor was just called “bad DLC.” But it ended up kick-starting of one of gaming’s most hated and most lucrative business tactics.
I didn’t find any references to “cache”. That’s the part I want to understand, what the significance of that part of the joke. Why “cache”?
cachet*
Honestly that horse armor implementation would be fine now. Purely cosmetic, wasn’t rammed in our face every time we opened the game, etc.
slippery slope… and here we are today
Slippery slopes hold no water
Tell that to literally every lake ever… When several slopes join together, you can, in fact, drown down slope.
🤓
Honestly, I’m all for horse armor. Oblivion didn’t do anything stupid like requiring an internet connection, and I could easily ignore the horse armor as horrendous value for my dollar. It’s way worse when they’re prioritizing “engagement” via battle passes or legalized gambling for children via loot boxes.
It gave your horse extra health actually, so not purely cosmetic. But I think in a single player game that also has extremely good modding tools, it doesn’t really matter. If you want to pay to win your single player game, you do you.
Horse armour was mostly a landmark for showing companies that consumers were willing to pay for micro stuff like that. The potential return vs effort invested was crazy. Todd himself said that they try doing nice DLC that gives you good value for your money, but it’s hard to justify business-wise when the horse armour is so cheap to make and sells so well.
